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the Protestants being worse than dogs; that the killing of such was meritorious, and an excellent preservative against the pains of Purgatory.
At the commencement of this horrid rebellion, several Irish gentlemen pretended great kindness to some of their Protestant neighbours and persuaded them to put their goods and cattle into their hands, in order to secure them from the rage of the rabble; because of former familiarity, the Protestants gave them inventories of all they had; nay, they digged up some of their best things which they had hidden in the ground, and put them into the Papists' hands; by this means they gained vast quantities of goods, and like true Papists cheated them out of them all.
In one place there were no less than twenty-two widows, who were first robbed, and then stripped stark naked; they covered themselves with straw in a house, but the bloody Papists threw in burning straw among them, on purpose to burn them together.
In the castle of Lisgol above an hundred and twenty men, women, and children, were burned together. Another castle was delivered to one of the Popish commanders, upon condition their lives should be saved. but as soon as he entered he cruelly murdered and destroyed them all without mercy. And at Portendown Bridge a thousand men, women, and children, were drowned in the river.
In Queen's county, an Englishman, his wife, five children, and a maid, were all hanged together, and then cut down and put into a hole; the youngest child, though it was hanged, was not quite dead when it was put in, but put up its
